Saturday, 26 March 2016

Well after a nightmare few weeks things tend to be settling back down.

My little Honey is now well on her road to recovery and I'm eternally grateful to the kindness of strangers for their donations for her medical costs. They were going to be in excess of £4000 just for her surgeries. The reason for the escalation in fees was due to the first operation being bungled slightly, but enough to become life threatening.

Luckily the referrals hospital took over her care and did repair surgery as soon as the possibly could, and charged the surgery bill to the first vet due to their refusal to operates, denying the first surgery hadn't been performed correctly.

Honey is now on a special diet for life due to the long term implications for her kidneys but is home and well, for which I am truly thankful.

Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Ah, the forgotten treasures that can be uncovered when having a total de-clutter. As I forge ahead on my boxing and bagging spree from my daughter's old room, I have come across so many, long forgotten, items. When I first moved here, she, K, had already been away at university for a year. Her room was only truly a base between semesters, so had been a bit of a storage space for many things (my other daughter, E, being the guilty party).Hidden among the treasures was an item from E's long ago 'teen witch' phase, something that I now recollect buying as a present for her. The box is slightly marked (probably black eyeliner) but it's contents totally intact. Titania's Spell Cards for Love and Success are a delightful little set of 64 cards each with a simple spell intended for a specific outcome. But that is not what drew me to them.On the other side of each card is a delightful image, very simplistic and all different. You know what I'm thinking, right?

This would make a great little oracle deck, a totally personal deck, one that could be 'just for fun' or something more specific, some specific theme, but great for just reading intuitively.

Looking through the images it does seem to be more capable of being a general themed little deck as there are images that involve plants, animals, earth elements and even general items like the umbrella and handbag.

So my downtime creative project this next few weeks is getting to know these cards and seeing just how they work (and searching for the other deck that I remember purchasing for E). Totally transforming their original purpose to one that is more useful to me, oh and telling E to take her badly hidden clutter over to her house instead of cluttering up mine.

Monday, 11 January 2016

It's funny how you sometimes hear the voice of another through the cards. I felt like today I had my hand slapped from my mother when I did my daily draw.
I took the weekend for some quiet time (and by quiet time I mean a Netflix binge), I even had it marked in my planner that this was my intention.
Clearly marked for today though was my plan of action for making a start on transforming my daughter's now unused bedroom into a calm and soothing meditation and yoga room. I picture it in my head, all warm neutrals with accents of soothing colour. A dark walnut unit dressed with some carefully chosen items and plants, a light crisp voile window covering to filter the sunlight and ambient lighting for the evening.
It's so real I can feel it's peaceful atmosphere soothing me already.
Then comes The Empress and 10 of Winter. I ponder it for a few minutes but decide if I just get on with my day it would become clear. I just didn't realise how clear it would be.
Full of my vision and fired up to make this real, I set off with gusto, excited at the idea of making this special place where I can close off from the noise and activity of the outside world. Envisioning the end result, like a protective cocoon, where I can retreat to the unconditional love of the cosmos.
BLAM!!!!! Reality check time.
Those 2 cards were telling me quite clearly, yes it's time to start to develop this plan, now that I have exactly what is needed it's time to build it, to grow it and make this haven, but maybe finishing the half started jobs would make the going so much easier in the long run. As that delightful little fairy looks up at the sun, focusing on its beauty, she's not considering the steep mountainside and the forest of trees she needs to manoeuvre through. She's only seeing the sun.
Yep, that moment of realising that this longed for space was only ever half cleared out, my daughter only taking what she had room for and leaving things behind. My bad, I admit, I couldn't bring myself to empty the room completely, as if doing so would eliminate part of the past. It's a silly notion but I think every parent feels a touch redundant when a child moves out, especially the youngest, the 'baby' of the family.
I can see now though, that an empty bedroom makes me no less her mum, having more physical distance between us is actually a very bonding experience as we treasure the time we do spend together.
So those cards today seemed to have my mother's voice as they told me, just as she would, 'you want this space? you're willing to put the effort in? Well finish what you originally started before you go any further young lady! Get this sorted out before you take one more step'.It's great to see the bigger picture, to be able to visualise the end result, but if we aren't dealing with the loose ends that need sorting then we may as well quit before we start.
As with everything in life, to get something, you have to be prepared to let go of something. So I am armed with boxes and rubbish bags, a 'keep' pile and a 'charity store' pile because a room for tranquility really can't be that when I'm stepping over books, Playstation games and CDs from 1998 that no self respecting 22 year old would admit to ever owning.

Thursday, 7 January 2016

I remember the first time I blew a dandelion clock, I made the huge mistake of inhaling hard before blowing, ending up with a mouthful of fluffy seeds that choked me until my nose bled. Never being one to allow such an incident to hinder doing it again and again, I would pick these little bubbles of fluff whenever I spied them, watching those tiny seeds drift out into the world seemingly lighter than air, where they would settle and flourish wherever they landed.Drawing the 8 of Spring and The Empress today, I couldn't see how the 8 of Spring related to a traditional 8 of Wands. Looking at these dandelion clocks, undisturbed by the fairy's movement, is reminiscent of the ones I picked that were not quite ready to dispatch their seeds. The ones where no amount of huffing and puffing would set the potential life airborne. And this is what I feel this combination is telling me.It's no good trying to force things to happen just yet, things need their own time to fully blossom before allowing the natural progression to take place. Just keeping a watchful eye on seeing things reach their best chance of travelling as far possible with no intervention. Allowing them to just be as they are at the moment means I can give myself a better chance of being able to create something that stands a much better chance of growing into something better, stronger and more fruitful in the long term.So I'm not rushing anything just yet, I'm just going to see how far my little seed gets once its ready to make its own way out in the world.

Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Having sat working through my Rituals for Living planner, I've amended my goals to a more realistic level. One of my main challenge areas has been finances and its time to get a grip.Like the majority of people worldwide, money gets tighter every month, as the financial institutions that run our planet tighten their choke hold on its ordinary citizens. And as I look at where my money goes (or went in 2015) I notice that so much went where I thought I wanted it to go, instead of where it probably should have gone.A tasty cappuccino at Costa (sorry Starbucks but until you pay your share of corporate taxes I ain't buying), a pre-packaged sandwich there and it starts to mount up. Really mount up. Add into that, the books, the card decks and the other pretty shiny 'needful' things that find their way into my shopping basket, I realised that bemoaning the fact I am always broke is quite ironic. Worrying about rent, fuel bills, petrol and the other necessities seems quite hypocritical, especially in a world where to a lot of people, a safe roof over their heads is just a dream. So taking note of my cards today, Ego (The Devil) and 2 of Winter, I realise that I participate too readily in 'work, buy, consume, die' vortex. My justification is that I work, so why shouldn't I reward myself? But who am I really rewarding, because by the middle of the month I am scraping pennies together to survive, having convinced myself I'll budget better the following month. Not facing the harsh truth that I am in a self made trap.I don't need these things, I just want them, convinced by the devil on my shoulder that I deserve them, I'm allowed a treat, and it'll make me feel goooooood, it'll distract me from the real issues. So my planner is now set up to make meaccountable for unnecessary spending. I have notes in my purse that ask me 'do I want or do I need?' My bank card has a note wrapped around it telling me to pause, breathe and decide, is this emotional spending or survival spending?We all deserve a treat, but a treat is something that is occasional, mine were habits, bad ones that promised me I'd feel good/better/happier.In reality I felt no such thing, I felt disappointed at my lack of self restraint, unhappy that my bank balance looked so bleak and stressed that I'd be living on beans on toast for days on end.It's going to be tough, but in the grand scheme of things, I have coffee in the house, I can make a sandwich to pop in my bag to take with me to work. It'll be even tougher not looking at deck reviews, and listening to the hype on the next must have deck, only reading books I have in my collection and not succumbing to new releases. It's time to be brutal and look at my culpability in my lack of finances and learn to ignore the devil on my shoulder, encouraging myself to buy, buy, buy, whispering to me that I'm worth it. Maybe I should call it L'Oreal,

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Leaving the drama and trauma of yesterday behind, it seems today is the day I can start to think about thinking about starting to work towards some goals.Turning the page on another unwritten chapter of life can really seem quite daunting, however, if the chapter was pre-written, there would be no adventure, no discoveries and no lessons to learn along the way . How boring and tedious life would be.I used to believe the adage 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going', yet sometimes the tough need to pause and plan, instead of blundering blindly ahead. It sometimes takes a strategy and careful decisions to see what direction the 'tough' should be heading.So today's cards, Princess of Winter and The Empress come to show me, it's time to start being realistic, make goals within the current strength of my mindset. Take baby steps, (instead of trying to run before I can walk, as that ground looks very slippy under her feet). All it takes to make something big is that very first active step, tend to it and encourage it and it should grow with each little step I take.So I'm not writing my new chapter, I'm just going to start the first sentence, because that is all it takes.